Trump may force illegals to pay for deportation appeals

FPI / February 28, 2020

The Trump administration is considering a new regulation in which illegal immigrants who are ordered deported by a federal immigration judge would be forced to pay for their appeals to those decisions.

Under the current process, American taxpayers are subsidizing the costs to the tune of about $40 million per year, Breitbart News reported.

The Trump administration plan would increase the fees that illegals would have to pay to appeal their deportation orders by federal immigration judges.

Fees for illegals to appeal their deportation orders, or reopen their cases, currently cost them about $100 to $110. Under the new regulation — which would be the first update to the fee amounts since 1986 — the cost to appeal deportation orders would run anywhere from $305 to $975, the Breitbart report said.

In cases where an illegal immigrant is specifically appealing a deportation order by a federal immigration judge, American taxpayers are forced to subsidize about $28 million a year in costs. In other cases where illegals are requesting their deportation orders be cancelled, the process costs American taxpayers nearly $8 million a year, the Breitbart report said.

The Trump administration won a huge victory on Feb. 26 when a federal appeals court ruled that the Department of Justice can refuse to give crime-fighting money to sanctuary cities and states.

The unanimous ruling from a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was a defeat for New York City and seven states — Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Virginia and Washington. They sued after the DOJ said in 2017 that it would not award grants from a federal program to local governments that withheld information about illegal immigrants in their jails.

"It recognizes the lawful authority of the attorney general to ensure that Department of Justice grant recipients are not at the same time thwarting federal law enforcement priorities," a DOJ spokesman said of the ruling.

Free Press International